SWAMIJI AND NETAJI ... 1

SWAMIJI AND NETAJI ... 1

If ever there was a follower of Swamiji, it was Netaji. He carried out to the hilt every word of Swamiji within the tremendous constraints of his political life. Perhaps, he was not a Vedantist in the truest sense of the term but he surely was sort of a practical Vedantist by default, a patriot peerless and a moral man who could serve as inspiration for generations of lay people. 

Netaji's love for the motherland was next to none. He approximated Swamiji in this respect, although their spheres of activity were in different planes, Swamiji working out India's overall destiny at the spiritual plane and Netaji shaping India's political destiny at the temporal plane. Both worked their hearts, minds and souls out to help recover India from her precipitated state. In the process both sacrificed their entire lives at the altar of the motherland's freedom.

Swamiji's was the Herculean task of singlehandedly discovering the essence of the Sanatan Dharma, translating it into simple, globally intelligible terms, yet rationally tenable in a world of emerging scepticism about things spiritual, and presenting it to the world with power and force so as not only to carry the day but to so alter the thought-current of the world as to significantly shift its basis from the material unto the spiritual, an achievement, if not so discernible now, which nonetheless will surely fructify in tangible terms in the long run, such was his prophetic power. How far he succeeded in his mission is for subtle eyes to detect, decipher and determine. Netaji's, on the other hand, was the seemingly impossible task of dislodging the entrenched imperial-colonial rule of Britain from India. How far Netaji succeeded in his mission is duly chronicled but scarce recognised. It is for his countrymen of head and heart alive to comprehend it.

End of Part 1

To be continued...

Written by Sugata Bose